


and if you want to go to heaven

by orphan_account



Category: Mission: Impossible (Movies), Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (2011), Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation (2015)
Genre: Asexual Ethan, Asexual Relationship, M/M, Multi, more of a 'what if' fic and character study than an actual headcanon of mine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-03
Updated: 2015-11-03
Packaged: 2018-04-29 17:43:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,444
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5136875
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There’s a line on the (highly classified) standard IMF Field Agent Form which reads, <i>I prefer sexual relations with: [ ] Men  [ ] Women  [ ] Both  [ ] None  [ ] Other: _______</i>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	and if you want to go to heaven

**Author's Note:**

> This was written after a 3 am discussion with a friend of mine who threw the ace!Ethan headcanon at me and basically let it run wild.
> 
> I'm not actually asexual myself, so I apologize if anything is incorrect or offensive.
> 
> Warnings for some internal and external acephobia.

In his mind, Mission Sex is different than Actual Sex. Not only is it (by definition) an act done for the sake of the mission; it usually involves some kind of paramount goal which makes the sex necessary. Interest, pleasure, even a hard-on can be faked with the right training and motivation, and when the fate of the free world is at stake, motivation isn’t at all hard to come by.

Ethan can do Mission Sex. Very well, in fact, considering all the positive feedback he’s gotten over the years.

It’s the Actual Sex part he struggles with.

 

+

 

Cindy is a cheerleader with silky blonde hair and a laugh that makes boys fall into line behind her. Ethan knows how to smirk and sweet talk and likes the confidence in the sway of her hips. They’ve been dating a little more than a month, and most of the school, Ethan’s friends especially, decide they know exactly what that should mean.

This is all well and good, except for the fact that Cindy’s breasts under his fingertips don’t create as intoxicating a feeling as when Ethan crossed the touchdown line with one second to spare, or even when he managed to scale that tree reaching up to the heavens in the woods behind Ryan’s house. Broken wrist and all, grasping the top branch was still better, a fact which is made abundantly clear to Cindy as soon as she slides a hand into his pants.

“The hell?” she snaps out with lips that had been pressed to his only a second ago. “You queer or something?”

(Sometimes he wonders about that, but when he looks back later and images Ryan’s hard planes instead of Cindy’s soft curves, Ethan knows his reaction would have been the same.)

 

+

 

Explosions make his heart race, make him feel more alive than any carnal act can.

 

+

 

“You aren’t disappointed?” he asks Julia on the morning after the first night he’s unwilling to fake anything because this _isn’t_ Mission Sex. The gentle, honest woman he loves deserves better than that.

She offers him a shrug, presses her face a little more into the curve of his neck. “Not too much. It means I don’t have to worry about you cheating on me.”

 

+

 

Much of the world operates under a delusion: Ethan Hunt, IMF Agent fresh out of training with a wide eyed grin and streak of god-awful luck, is promiscuous. Technically, they’re correct.

Realistically, they’re the furthest thing from it. Promiscuity implies that he’s doing this for pleasure or enjoyment, or _anything_ except a desire to prove that since he’s now employed to risk his life on a daily basis, Ethan is actually able to have sex like a fucking normal person, instead of being distracted mid-blowjob by some new scheme. Interest, pleasure, even a hard-on can be faked with the right training and motivation, and Ethan hopes every single time that he’ll be able to stop faking and make it real.

(Ethan operates under a delusion, too, because the definition of insanity is doing the same act over and over and over, expecting a different result.)

 

+

 

There are bullets flying through the air, and a hand’s breadth away from him, Brandt wears the wolfish grin of a man living on borrowed time. Ethan knows that look intimately; this is not the first time it’s been mirrored on his own face, and if they survive today, it certainly won’t be the last.

“Do you trust me?” he asks, and Will’s smile never flickers.

It is, according to Benji, a long way down without the glass floor below them, but a long way down means more time to figure something out. In the end, it isn’t actually Ethan who shatters the ground beneath them.

 

+

 

Here’s the problem, because the universe (and God, if he exists) is a great fan of making Ethan’s life ridiculously fucking difficult: Ethan likes kissing. Loves it, in fact, almost as much as he loves _loving someone_. His situation could have been resolved quite neatly if Ethan was able to simply cut everything with a tie to sex out of his life. Unfortunately for him, Ethan Hunt is by nature an affectionate creature. He craves intimacy, craves a warm body to wrap himself around in the dead of night.

Cuddling, hand-holding, fingers in his hair; it’s the best damn feeling ever. But then the touches become more urgent, the press of lips against his own more insistent, and that good feeling sours low in his gut where he thinks arousal was _supposed_ to be.

 

+

 

He wants to kiss Will.

 

+

 

Will kisses him.

They’re _alive_ , sprawled haphazardly in the grass of a small clearing, bullet-torn parachutes stretching out behind them like a pair of broken wings, and Will kisses him. It takes Ethan less than a millisecond to get with the program, but even as his fingers curl around the straps of Will’s harness, the other man is pulling away.

“I’m sorry—” he blurts, eyes wide, but Ethan cuts Brandt off by yanking him to his feet.

“Save it until after the mission.” He starts towards the compound they had originally been aiming for and doesn’t look back.

 

+

 

With Julia, none of this is more than a minor issue. She isn’t too interested in sex, and it isn’t even _bad_ the few times they actually decide to do the deed. Ethan likes touching Julia, making her smile and giggle and moan. If that means doing something he isn’t entirely interested in, but doesn’t particularly mind either, well, he’s done far worse.

He mentions _It_ for the first time as they tangle together on the couch, so close Ethan can barely tell where one body begins that the other ends. Her eyebrows knit together in confusion, (and Ethan feels a twist of fear in his chest) but by the time he’s finished speaking, laying bare the inefficacies of his life, her expression has smoothed over into a look of soft understanding as she winds fingers through his hair. “But you like me, don’t you?” she asks, and he can do nothing but give her his most honest smile and an absolute, irrevocable yes.

“Then it’s not a problem,” a pause, and her eyes sharpen for a moment, “just don’t do anything you don’t want to do, alright, Ethan?”

 

+

 

With a gasp, he peels himself away from Will, giving the other man ample time (in their terms, not those of a civilian) to step away from the apartment wall before Ethan drops to his knees. Or, tries to, but a steel grip closes on his shoulder and yanks him back upward.

“What are you doing.” It doesn’t feel like a question.

He offers an arched brow and cocky smile as if to say, ‘what do you think?’ but Brandt was the Chief Analyst for a reason, and Ethan can feel those eyes boring through his mask. “I let you have,” a sweep of Will’s hand encompasses every mark Ethan managed to make before the interruption. “But whatever the hell you’re doing…” No one about to get his dick sucked should sound so utterly pained. “I read your file, Ethan. Not because of the date; before.”

“If this is about what you think I’m willing to do—”

“No.” The set to Will’s jaw echoes every other part of his body. “It’s about what I’m not willing to let you do.”

There’s no fighting against that, nothing to do but assume the inexorable posture he’s worn in a thousand situations, but never one like this. “Eth—” is all Will manages before Ethan silences the other man with an unwavering press of lips, one that only softens a few seconds after Will finally uncoils under his touch.

“I like this, okay. Just this.” It’s neither an apology nor an explanation, but as close as Ethan Hunt will come to giving Will either. “I want you to like this too.”

He doesn’t need to hold Will’s gaze to know that he understands, but Ethan does anyway. “Just this,” Will confirms, and skates a thumb along the sharp line of Ethan’s jaw before kissing him.

 

+

 

They end up curled together on Ethan’s couch in a display of trust only understood by the truly dangerous. Ethan doesn’t bother to conceal his pleased smirk.

 

+

 

There’s a line on the (highly classified) standard IMF Field Agent Form which reads, _I prefer sexual relations with: [ ] Men  [ ] Women  [ ] Both  [ ] None [ ] Other: _______._ In all honesty, Ethan is more interested in blowing things up than having ‘sexual relations’, but he thinks that might raise a few red flags in the IMF’s psychological department, so he checks ‘None’ and calls it a day.

**Author's Note:**

> Well, that's that, and I hope you enjoyed.
> 
> You can find me on tumblr at [ethaanhunt](http://ethaanhunt.tumblr.com/) where I ramble extensively about MI and various other fandoms.


End file.
